Topics

There aren’t many people in hockey with a ring-to-scratch ratio like Dustin Penner’s.

After all, how many players both good enough to win Stanley Cup championships on two different teams and frustrating enough to have their mail delivered to the doghouse?

He’s one of a kind, all right, which is why Darryl Sutter pulled him out of the lineup Thursday in Edmonton, three games in into the LA Kings defence of a title he helped win.

“We’ve been there before,” Penner said of his various public spankings in Edmonton and Los Angeles. “It’s unfortunate. I wish I could say that I played better, but I haven’t, it’s all on me. I have to play better.”

After watching Penner turn in a pair of mediocre games, Sutter didn’t give him a chance to make it a third.

The timing is no accident. Sutter knows Penner wanted to make a triumphant return to Edmonton, but the message seems to be: play hard when we need it, not when you want it.

Being scratched anywhere is tough to swallow, but having to sit out a game in Edmonton is worse.

“It is,” he said. “It would be nice to play here, see some familiar faces, none more special than (equipment assistant) Joey Moss. But you don’t look at it as one game, you look at it as a whole season. It’s what I have to do and how I have to get better. I’m letting the team down by not being in the lineup.

“As one of the coaches said, ‘You’re too good of a player to be average,’ and I’ve been average the last two games.”

He isn’t blaming the lockout for pushing him off schedule, either.

“There was no drop off from where I was last year at this time to now. It’s just one of those things where the guillotine has to fall somewhere when the team under-produces and more times than not, it’s fallen on me.”

Still, he does have rings from Anaheim and Los Angeles, which is pretty cool for a guy who was never drafted.

“It is. I would have never thought I’d have two rings and a banner of myself hanging in Winkler (Manitoba). I’ve done all right.”

He doesn’t travel with the rings, obviously. Doesn’t even wear them around much in LA.

Dustin Penner a healthy scratch for Los Angeles Kings game against the Edmonton Oilers

There aren’t many people in hockey with a ring-to-scratch ratio like Dustin Penner’s.

After all, how many players both good enough to win Stanley Cup championships on two different teams and frustrating enough to have their mail delivered to the doghouse?

He’s one of a kind, all right, which is why Darryl Sutter pulled him out of the lineup Thursday in Edmonton, three games in into the LA Kings defence of a title he helped win.

“We’ve been there before,” Penner said of his various public spankings in Edmonton and Los Angeles. “It’s unfortunate. I wish I could say that I played better, but I haven’t, it’s all on me. I have to play better.”

After watching Penner turn in a pair of mediocre games, Sutter didn’t give him a chance to make it a third.

The timing is no accident. Sutter knows Penner wanted to make a triumphant return to Edmonton, but the message seems to be: play hard when we need it, not when you want it.